


An Interlude: A Study in Love and Loss (and their beginnings and ends)

by Cross_d_a



Series: he leaves sand and stardust in his wake [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Multi, Obi-Wan is just a sad puppy and I want to cry okay, also a bunch of characters are mentioned but not necessarily the focus??, but nothing concrete?, mentioned major character deaths???, mentioned past relationships, this sweet child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6116613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cross_d_a/pseuds/Cross_d_a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan finds that he cannot help but love.<br/>--<br/>He has loved and lost more than he can count (as so many have), and still he does not know whether it would have been better if he had never loved at all.</p><p>Obi-Wan thinks loss starts with love. And maybe sometimes love starts with loss, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Interlude: A Study in Love and Loss (and their beginnings and ends)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been puttering around, poking and prodding and adding to this universe. I'm working with things I know about the Jedi Apprentice series and a couple other books that aren't necessarily canon but I think provide a lot of depth.  
> During a break at work this little piece forced its way into existence and burst onto the page quite unexpectedly. It's perhaps a bit ramble-y, but I feel like it's sorely needed. Before the next big part, that is. :)  
> A little exploration, and maybe a little complication.  
> Music I would perhaps suggest: "Like the Dawn" by The Oh Hellos, and "Out of the Ground" by Tall Heights.

When Obi-Wan was young (and not young-and-old-and-nothing-at-once like he is now)— When Obi-Wan was young and the Force curled like a slumbering Loth-cat in his chest he had thought he had known love. He had looked at Bant and her salmon-soft hand in his as they curled in bed with Garen and Reeft snoring into their sides, and thought: I love you. You are my sister, and I love you.

She is still his sister even when she screams at him about Tahl and whywhy _why_ didn't you  _tell me_. Even after Reeft dies. Even after the galaxy tilts on its axis (if it ever even had one) and even after people just keep dying and dying and he loses track of her after Anakin Falls and she might be dead she’s probably dead oh _Force_ —  
  
(Even then)  
  
(Even now)  
  
When Obi-Wan was young (and not too-weary-and-aching because he's-an-open-wound like he is now)— When Obi-Wan was young he had watched the fire of Cerasi's hair that matched her heart and the gentle curve of her cheek and felt the flush of something new and exciting tremble about the beat of his heart and the Force in his chest, and thought: I love you. You could be mine, and I love you.

So he renounced everything he believed in. He renounced his Master. Threw his lightsaber at his feet and screamed  _I love her_  (even though he didn't really know what love was at all). He took her hand and fled to help her fight a war that was not his and she died in his arms, blood soaking her too-young chest, tearing through her rebel heart (and his along with it).  
  
(Just like someone else would)

(But he did not know that yet)

He returned to his Master with red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands, a terrible wisdom in his heart.

Love is sometimes not enough.

(He even goes so far as to think love is a mistake)

_(this is not wisdom)_

(But then he loves Satine and it will all end the same with blood on her chest and on his hands as she dies in his arms)

(this is repeated)

(and repeated)

(and repeated)

(but he was not to know that yet)  
  
When Obi-Wan was young (not too-young but still achingly-young because he'd not known loss like he has now over and over and over)— When Obi-Wan— Well, when he was young. He stared at his Master's broad back. At the strength in his spine. At the curve of his shoulders and the tumble of grey-coarse hair down his back, and thought: I love you. I am yours, and I love you love you love you.   
  
Qui-Gon is his Master and yet he is more than that. More than a friend, more than a father, more than a brother-- but  _something else_  he cannot quite ever put his finger on.  
  
(He thinks of Cerasi and his mind shies away)  
  
(He knows where that road ends)  
  
When Obi-Wan was older but still young (and aching but not an open-wound-that-festers-and-rots like now), he watched a boy grow from an apprentice into a friend into a brother. He watched that golden hair fly and those broad shoulders slouch and that scar cut across his sky-blue eye to scrunch in laughter. He watched the smear of lashes across flushed cheeks. He felt the warmth of pride, and thought: I love you. You are my brother and I am yours and I love you more than you could know.  
  
(And we all know how that turned out)  
  
Obi-Wan cannot help but love. Obi-Wan loves despite the Code. He loves despite the raggedness of his heart, and he continues to love even after he wonders if there is anything left to love.

He loves even though sometimes he does not realize it, even though sometimes he denies it— Because Jedi should not love. Because it is unwise. Because it hurts not only others but yourself and Obi-Wan does not truly think himself worthy of love.

He thinks he has failed too many times for that.  
  
(he pulses like a star so bright and warm and people fall into his orbit because they cannot help it because Obi-Wan is Obi-Wan and he has so much to give and gives more than he should)

Obi-Wan loves Padme. If he had known her better, he might even have called her sister.

Obi-Wan loves his troops even after they turn and shoot at him, helmets bright in the sun, still painted in his colours.

Obi-Wan loves Luke and Leia and maybe Luke more because he watches the boy grow up. He watches that boy look up at pale blue sky and up at the twin suns and then three moons and then passed them to stars he has never known (but soon will).

Obi-Wan loves Han and Chewie through Luke and Leia and then simply _because_. Because there are so many worthy of love.

He loves little Ben when he squalls his way into the world and Leia’s arms.

He loves Rey and her star-fire heart.

He loves Finn and Poe and how they look at each other like nothing could possibly be more important (except maybe Rey, because Rey is more than anyone knows and maybe more than anyone deserves).

He wishes he could have told Anakin this: Jedi breathe compassion into us, into our very soul, into our very _being_ and yet they tell us we cannot love? Yes, you can love. Yes, we all love even when we don’t want to. Yes, yes, yes it hurts and sometimes it’s wrong and sometimes we’re not even sure it _is_ love, but—

Where would we be without it?

Obi-Wan still struggles with this.

He has loved and lost more than he can count (as so many have), and still he does not know whether it would have been better if he had never loved at all.

Obi-Wan thinks loss starts with love. And maybe sometimes love starts with loss, too.  
  
Obi-Wan wonders: When _did_ this all start. Because it started when a father yelled _BEN_ over a deep void and died because he dared to hold his desolate son. Because it started when Snoke crumbled a young boy with constant whispers. It started when Luke said: "I don't want to be the only Jedi." It started when Vader lifted the galaxy's terror high into the air and thought: _No more_. It started when the Death Star blew and Obi-Wan fell beneath a once-brother's blade and when Luke longed for the skies and Obi-Wan left him there and Padme gave up and Anakin wailed about betrayal and when Obi-Wan didn't listen and when love blossomed and grew and grew and grew until it became a whirlwind of confusion and longing (but maybe that's the way it's always been)—

It started when a good man died and Obi-Wan was left to grasp at ashes, and it started when a boy offered them a place to stay and it started when a man tipped the scales and the galaxy fell into chaos starting with a young Queen's planet and it started when Xanatos fell and it started when Obi-Wan stepped up the ramp to a ship to Bandomeer and it started when Bruck Chun said something Obi-Wan didn't like and he lashed out and it started before Obi-Wan was even born it started when Jedi knew too much and it started when Jedi began to question and it started when  _others_ began see  _they weren't the only ones_ and it began when they asked _why_ and _when_ and _how_.  
  
So Obi-Wan knows it's more than just him and his loss. He is not the beginning and he is not the end. You cannot fix everything and perhaps you  _shouldn't_  fix everything.

So Obi-Wan wonders this: What should I fix.

He wonders this: What _can_ I fix, and _where should I start_.

So he pauses in the middle of the shuttle that heads away from somewhere he cannot linger and heads to somewhere he cannot stay. He huddles between sloped shoulders and dangling tentacles and snorting trunks and thinks. He taps his chin. Taps his toe. Repeat.

He is ten. Anakin will be born six years from now. He has no way to find Anakin’s mother. He hardly can with just the name of one in a billion-trillion slaves. Even if he somehow did, he has no ‘sabre. He’s still twitchy and stumbling in a body that should be fiftyfortytwentyanddead.

But he has a fixed point in time. He knows Shmi Skywalker will be on Tatooine when Anakin is three years old. He knows this. He can work with this.

But that is nine years from now. He still has nine years, and so much to do.

He thinks, confuses himself, shakes his head a little and starts counting on his fingers.

Anakin will be born in six years. Padme will be born in one. Shmi is now twenty-five and Qui-Gon forty-five. The clones will be born in fifteen. Ahsoka will be born in eleven.

If all goes well Luke and Leia will be born in twenty-eight.

(he has his hopes that he barely dares to acknowledge because so much can go wrong so fast he’s seen so before and he has no doubt he will see so again)  
  
He thinks this: I am ten years old. Qui-Gon is forty-five, and he lost Xanatos three years ago. Xanatos was sixteen when he Fell. He is nineteen now.

Obi-Wan’s breath hitches. He thinks of his once-Master’s dulled gaze, distant and grieving. He thinks of a stubborn man who refused apprentices, any apprentice, no matter how good they were, no matter that his first turned out all right, for fear that everything would repeat repeat repeat.

He thinks of spitting acid pools, hot and bright and all too-reminiscent of Mustafar. Thinks of the crazed spark in Xanatos’ eyes. Of the terrible cut of a smile across a too-pale face. Of the words:

_“Your hate drove you, though you won’t admit it. You destroyed me because you could not save me. I am your biggest failure. Live with that. And live with this.”_

He thinks of his Master’s aborted cry. Of a smile too delighted and far too gruesome for memory (though it stained itself upon his eyelids like ink from a well). He thinks of a body flung by its own power and plummeting into—

He wonders: How will it change now that I am gone?

He thinks of a blade bleeding as dark and terrible as the wound left in its wake.

Terror seizes him by the throat. He chokes. Very keenly notices the absence of a braid brushing against his trembling jaw.

He thinks: Maybe I will start there.

He wonders this: Will it be enough?


End file.
